Why the 'Realists' Are Wrong: Doing Well by Doing Good in US Foreign Policy

Posted by Cameo Cheung on

Would Libya be better off today if America had never intervened? Would Syria be better if it had? Was non-intervention in Rwanda the biggest mistake of Bill Clinton’s presidency? Determining what America’s role in the world should be has always been a bedeviling question. With more refugees today than at any time since the end of World War II, it remains central to American foreign policy. Join Stephen Rickard, Director of the Open Society Foundation in Washington and a veteran in human rights advocacy, as he makes his case that the “realists” are wrong, and America must also do good in the world.

About Stephen Rickard

Stephen Rickard is the director of the Open Society Foundation’s Washington, D.C., office and directs Open Society’s advocacy on federal domestic policy and U.S. foreign policy. He is also executive director of the Open Society Policy Center.

Before joining Open Society, Rickard created and ran the Freedom Investment Project and served as director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights and as Washington director for Amnesty International USA. He served as the senior advisor in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of South Asian Affairs during the Clinton administration. He also worked for Senator Moynihan and the Foreign Relations Committee in the U.S. Senate. In 2011, he was a Franklin Fellow in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

Mr. Rickard received his JD from Yale Law School, an MPA from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and a BA from Adrian College.